


Switch the Beat

by White_Rabbits_Clock



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Not Steve Friendly, Steve learns to be nicer, Suicide Attempt, Thor Is a Good Bro, Tony Is a Good Bro, in fact, several of them - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-08 23:15:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12875112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/White_Rabbits_Clock/pseuds/White_Rabbits_Clock
Summary: Tony's whole life is hard and fast, but this thing he has with Thor switches the rhythm a little bit.





	Switch the Beat

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a request made by J.

Tony’s not sure when it happened, but sometime between their rocky first meeting and now, Jane breaks up with Thor. It goes the way it went with Pepper. Tony doesn’t say anything, but he plays all Thor’s favorite Disney movies whenever the god is near enough to be ensnared by them. 

Things change, after that. An invitation to wander down to Thor’s floor when sleep is too hard to come by saves him lectures from Captain Tight-Ass about how he needs to either go to bed or lay still. An invitation to the lab during anything that has explosions is met with delight. 

A soft pat, and Tony’s on Thor’s couch, sometimes falling asleep there when insomnia’s being a bigger bitch than usual. He falls asleep there more often than anywhere else, the thunderer a promise of protection. From what, Tony doesn’t know. He thinks that, whenever he has nightmares and wakes up with a blanket he didn’t know he needed, maybe Thor likes him. Maybe it isn’t just pity.

Slumber parties of one on the couch leads to explorations into Pixar and Thor discovering that he loves the original Annie. Tony is in a special kind of luxury at the allowance of catnaps with his head next to the god’s thigh and whispered confessions about a lot of shit.

Tony learns that Loki is utterly miserable, in or out of Asgard, and that he doesn’t know what to do because the last time Thor found his brother, the mage was a raging mess because apparently killing oneself is impossible when you’re Loki.

Thor learns that Tony’s mother was a cellist, a violinist, and a pianist before the drugs took away her rhythm, and that Tony could play them all, too. Lessons until he was nine or ten was, in a lot of ways, her parting gift, given years before she died. Sometimes he played for her, when he was especially worried about how far gone his mother had gotten herself. Sometimes he plays for Thor, because it reminds the god of when all Loki ever wanted was to be good at magic. Before the word  _ ergi _ ever entered his vocabulary. Before they taught him shame.

Eventually confessions on the couch become sleeping in the same bed become hands running contemplatively over Tony’s side and back or through his hair, or Tony’s inquisitive, curious fingers dancing or dragging across thick, calloused knuckles, tracing scars. Some are silvery and old, others red and angry.

Exploratory hands become beards scratching and heads tilting as lips meet become a body dragged onto a much larger lap and into a much larger bed. It’s a living thing, what they’ve got. A sleepy, living thing. 

Heavy petting turns to warnings. 

Don’t pull Thor’s hair. 

Don’t touch Tony’s reactor without explicit permission and never during sex. 

No baths, ever, and no yelling.

It’s a good thing, because it isn't fast and hard like the rest of Tony’s life. It’s a growing thing. A plant that’s slowly getting bigger and that Tony loves watering. Thor brings Tony to meet Loki, and they talk about all the things they have in common, despite being enemies, born worlds away from each other. It seems to help. Somehow, somewhere along the way, Loki starts to seek out Tony, and the inventor realizes he has a secret friend who likes to sleep in Tony’s bed when Tony’s with Thor. 

Casual sex and not so casual conversation gets more important to them both when post battle shaking becomes a thing Tony learns about, when the lighting is still all underneath Thor’s skin and it won’t go away. It just hurts. Tony learns how to distract him until it all settles. Tony’s there when Thor wakes up from his bad dreams, and vice versa.

This thing they have is something they keep between each other. He thinks this is the first time he knows of that Loki’s seen a thing and not tried to disrupt it. He just fits himself along Tony’s other side when sex isn’t in the air. 

Thor is still rowdy and touchy with everyone after battle, Tony still silent and pensive. He doesn’t know that Thor notices. Doesn’t know that Thor cares. They don’t talk about that one. It’s a current issue. They don’t talk about current issues more than they have to.

Easy companionship equals better teamwork on the field. Natasha notices. Files it away. The debriefings get a little less brutal. Tony is doing less wrong, and ain’t that some shit? Thor thinks he’s almost worked out why post battle elation is not something his shield brother and bedmate has.

He gets it, one day, when there’s this stealth mission that goes wrong and Tony gets knocked into a small lake with an electric current shot through it that instantly fries the suit and kills every fish in the water with him. As he sinks to the bottom, Tony starts to panic because he’s surrounded by water and it’s all so heavy, the way it presses down on him, fills his lungs even though the suits still closed so that’s not happening yet.

Somewhere in there, he finds it in him to activate the body release hatches, and then he’s out, in the open water, the current gone. He’s swimming to the surface, but it’s so dark and so cold and he just knows when he gets in air he’ll be back in some cave in Gulmira, Afghanistan, zip code Bumfuck Nowhere. Then they’re going to dunk him in again.

He breaks the surface and clambers onto the rocky shoreline. His tech is wet, and if it isn’t wet, it’s definitely fried, so he doesn’t even bother with the comm. He’s got… what has he got? To get across the desert, but this isn’t a desert, and it’s in the middle of the night. He’s got to find the others.

He doesn’t remember most of the trek around the edge of the unguarded beach. But he does remember sliding into a gaping hole in the grating to a pipe that he has to get down on his hands and knees to get into. At some point, he is genuinely crawling through shit, heart and stomach in his throat, hoping he won’t get stuck. 

He doesn’t, but it’s a near thing. One page out of Clint’s book later and he’s in the ventilation, made strong enough for Tony to crawl around (and isn’t that dumb?). He finds his way to the guy’s laboratory, where he can see Steve giving the Truth And Justice talk to the guy, this week’s villain, can see Barton attempting to pick at his locks without being seen, can see Widow passed out in her cage, and Thor in his. Smart man. Dumb at picking hideouts.

He looks at Steve and can tell that there must be something else in place besides iron to keep a supersoldier in check. He looks around, and moves to another vent cover so he can get a look at a the glow of a machine he only barely saw before. It’s childishly simple to figure out how it works. 

When the guy’s back is turned, Tony claws at the vents until he can get the grate up, the heavy edges making him bleed and his fingernails break. A few more breaths, then he’s gripping the edge of the metal and swinging in a steep, shallow arch to land directly on top of the machine. His fall breaks part of it and bruises him, which is enough to revive Thor and give Captain America a chance to fight.

He doesn’t remember much else, except he’s knocked aside at one point and almost dies at another. In the end they’re all standing there, slightly harmed and mostly alive. Steve gives him this look.

“Where’s your comm? You were supposed to have our backs,” Tony shrugs, trying not to fall down as he turns and leads them out of the castle. They go down to the lake, where he points out over the water. 

“Somewhere out there.”

“You need to get your suit,” Steve says, like it’s not obvious, “and wash off too.” Tony shakes his head.

“I’m not going back in the water.”

“You have thousands of dollars worth of tech down there and you smell like a sewer. At least take care of the second part.” 

“No.” and he means it. His face burns from the public dressing-down this is turning out to be, but he’s not going back in that cold, dark water. He feels a big palm on his shoulder, a glare directed past him and the drape of dry fabric over his flight suit, then Thor is the one in the water, down for nearly a minute before he surfaces, the Iron Man suit in hand. He throws it up onto dry land.

“Let us hasten home. I need a shower, as well.”

“We need to debrief,” Steve reminds them all as Tony follows Thor up onto the quinjet. He knows that it’s pointed towards him, though. He can’t really talk right now. He’s too tired, too humiliated by crawling in shit, too embarrased because it was pointed out.

He knows what’s coming- they’re all going to sit down at the table and Steve’s going to try and squeeze out details that Tony barely remembers and all he can think about is water over his head. and Thor’s voice is quiet and low and says something that makes Steve retreat. Tony is confused. Can’t really remember what’s going on. Doesn’t think that’s a good thing.

What is a good thing is the way Thor’s thick arm settles around him, and he leans into his side and doesn’t feel bruised anymore. Steve shuts up at that, and Tony doesn’t fight when that big hand tugs him down into seat or guides him off the jet. There isn’t a debrief. He cries from relief.

Thor stays with him all the way to the god’s floor, and he doesn’t seem to mind that the flight suit smells like shit when he tugs it off Tony. He doesn’t seem to mind that the inventor, now that the day is done, can hardly stand. He doesn’t seem to mind stepping into the shower with Tony, or helping him wash and then washing himself. Or how he has to stop in the middle because Tony panics and he’s just so confused. He doesn’t seem to mind when he lays out Tony on his bed and squeezes and presses all over his body until he is so lax he can’t move.

He falls asleep in a glorious tangle of warm skin and soft breaths. He wakes up to a hand rubbing smooth lines from shoulder to ass.

“Hmm… debrief.”

“No. The captain can wait. Besides, you are ill.” and he is. His head hurts and his eyes hurt and his whole body is just one big ache. He dreamed of Gulmira last night. He tugs Thor so that the god is half on top of him, a comforting weight against his back, and goes back to sleep. 

Sometime after that, things change again. Steve won’t approach Tony the way he used to. Won’t demand for things that Tony is anxious to give. Debrief procedures are changed. Tony doesn't notice until he steps off the quinjet. Another bad mission. Another cloudy headspace. Thor isn’t there. Thor is in Asgard and Tony is all alone and Tony doesn’t think he can be alone but Thor isn’t there and-

“Stark. Barton. Written accounts of what happened. You have two days. You two are dismissed. Go take care of yourselves.” He looks at Barton, as banged up as he is, and the two wander off.

There isn’t anyone to help him shower, and he leans for too long against the cold tile. When he gets out, Loki is there, reading a book in his bed. He looks up, and in an instant is at his side, long fingers gripping his arm, pulling him over to the bed and tucking him in. They slide closer to sleep together.

“Last week I blew myself up,” Loki says, and Tony remembers that particularly painful aspect of Loki’s life. His quest to die.

“I got blown up today. Caught inside the blast radius of a missile and slammed into the ground.”

“Oh.” Loki slides down until he can gather Tony close, the inventor’s ear pressed to a bone white chest.

“I miss Thor,” Tony breathes.

“Me, too,” Loki says. Tony knows he’ll never actually tell Thor that, but the sentiment, and their continued association, says enough. 

He doesn’t fuck Loki. His partner in dreams and in verbal swordplay remains his friend. He learns things.

“I had children. Asgard called them monsters. They’re all either dead or hidden away where they can’t be found,” Loki says one day.

“I’m sorry.”

“Aren’t we all?”

“Yeah,” he breathes. “My mother had two miscarriages after me. One time she got high and drunk at the same time and said it was my fault. Think I was seven.”

“Did you believe her?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m the son of a Jotun mage named Farbauti, who was the daughter of a human and a Jotun. It’s why I’m so small for a frost giant.”

“I hate my dad but I drink just like him.”

“You haven’t lately.”

“No, I haven’t.” the conversation dies down as Tony drifts off to sleep, Loki there to guard against the nightmares.

Thor comes back, after a while, and Tony’s still sore and wrung out from the missile thing, and he hears worried whispers. Then there’s warmth on his front and back.

“There’s my Man of Iron,” Thor murmurs. Tony knows he’s not imagining it when he sees that his hand cradles Loki close, too.

Tony is delighted when Loki shows him a gift he’s going to give to Helblindi, the current king of Jotunheim. It’ll stabilize their planet. Let it recover. Let the life grow where he sought to sew death. He’s utterly taken by the fact that Loki seems to have found solace and companionship in a much older elf. An elf who was cursed a very long time ago, to never die, then tortured for millennia before his escape. The elf lives alone, an unwanted hermit. Just like Loki. The elf meets Thor. Something like understanding passes between them all. 

It’s a slow growing thing, what they have.

It pulses and beats to the tempo of men who have learned the value of taking things slow. To the tempo of men who have seen too many things, too quickly, and feel the need to walk for a while.

It’s a slow growing thing they have, and even though Tony’s not quite ready to acknowledge it, he knows he’s fallen in love, and he doesn’t ever want it to stop.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, comments and concrit are welcome.


End file.
